Chinese authorities bust online gambling ring

Police in the city of Cixi, in the mainland Chinese province of Zhejiang, have recently broken up a gambling ring that took bets through a website set up overseas, Chinese-language media from the mainland reported on Thursday.

The reports said the suspects were alleged to have earned illegal profits of CNY50 million (US$7.3 million) through accepting players’ bets on “online baccarat” games.

Since September 1, the police have caught 21 suspects believed to be involved in the alleged Internet gambling ring. This was the second such crackdown in Cixi this year, after the police detained 50 people in late March suspected of being involved in the same case of illegal gambling.

The latest media reports said the illegal online betting case was still being investigated. But the reports did not clarify whether the gambling website was related to casino proxy gambling. The latter refers to where a gambler not physically present in a casino designates a trusted individual as his or her proxy, which is allowed in some regulated gambling markets.

A Thursday report published by Chinese-language Legal Daily cited the police as stating that two alleged ringleaders were suspected to have a connection with a “baccarat gambling website” in the Philippines.

Last month, police in the province of Jiangsu disrupted an international gambling ring that took bets through a website set up in the Philippines. At the time, state-run news agency Xinhua said 50 suspects were arrested either in Shanghai, in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang, or in the southern provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, and that another six suspects were arrested elsewhere on the mainland after returning from the Philippines and surrendering to officials.

"We are building momentum and continuing to grow our business while at the same time operating more efficiently"Barry CottleChief executive and president of casino equipment maker and lottery services supplier Scientific Games